


The Matter of Family

by Nedrika



Category: The Importance of Being Earnest - Wilde
Genre: Accidental Incest, Alcohol, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nedrika/pseuds/Nedrika
Summary: A quiet evening of single malt, reminiscing and crippling mortification.
Relationships: Algernon "Algy" Moncrieff/John "Jack" Worthing, Cecily Cardew/Algernon "Algy" Moncrieff, Gwendolen Fairfax/John "Jack" Worthing
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The Matter of Family

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



For all the upsets of their recent lives at least the club had the decency to remain the same in all its velvet upholstered and cigar stained glory. The single malt may even have improved in their absence, a trick they may have to repeat to see if the pattern bears fruit. 

Algernon and Ernest John Moncrieff, the latter erstwhile known as Jack Worthing, were sinking themselves into the curves and creases of an armchair and chaise respectively with matching weight to their eyelids and their lips an identical shade of madeira. 

"I have to say, I'm exceedingly glad that a honeymoon is a one-time event," Algy drawled with a wide smile, pouring the last of the port into his stained sherry glass and wobbling it to the region of his face. "I don't think I'll have the energy for another one within this lifetime; Cecily's relentless."

"Speak for yourself, I couldn't sit down for a week," Jack muttered, to Algy's immediate interest. He tutted at the raised eyebrow and sank another finger of whisky. "You don't need to know."

"Keep your marital secrets, then. I'll get it out of you one day." Algy sank back with a sigh. "It's been a good lark so far, this marriage business. It's difficult to imagine two days similar enough to become a bore." 

"Gwendolen's much the same; I haven't had a full night's sleep since we left Herefordshire." 

Algy shifted against the creaking leather.

"Speaking of, I'm going to have to check in on Aunt Augusta soon and she'll have been building up her rebukes without any release for weeks. She could burst any minute."

His shiver passed through to Jack.

"I suppose I need to go with you, seeing as how she's my aunt, now, too." 

"I'd rather have been adopted into the Great Western Railway."

"Don't be foolish, Algy," Jack scoffed. "Worthing is a completely different line."

"Well at least you know one of your family trees. Now we just have to get you up to date on your new one; to get you started, I'm your brother, Algernon Moncrieff," he said, waving the glass at himself.

"That's a difficult one to forget."

"I always knew there was something to you, old boy," Algy smiled with glee. "Nothing but the sparkling intellect of a Moncrieff could possibly have come up with such a perfect alibi as the utilitarian Ernest and Bunbury. Why, we've been as close as Castor and Pollux from the first time we met in the halls back at Trinity. "

"I thought you were a frightful boy, far too loud and incorrigibly shameless."

"You came round to me in the end though, didn't you? And at least some of me must have rubbed off on you. I know for a fact that quite a lot of me already has."

He raised his eyebrows scandalously, to suitably scandalised effect.

"You cant be thinking of that now, it's obscene! We're brothers!"

"Come now old chap, its positively classical. Hellenistic." 

"Yes, and that would make this a tragedy. A prospect I don't happen to enjoy at all."

"Well, we've made it this far intact, at least as far as I can see, so I think we've made it out scot-free, wouldn't you say? Seems as the universe is smiling on an honest expression of brotherly love."

"It wasn't brotherly at that moment in time, if memory serves."

"What's a little innocent fumbling between family," Algy shrugged, settling in to watch the indignant flush crawl up Jack's neck with an air of smug satisfaction. 

"It wasn't innocent either. "It was really a rather catastrophic inconvenience, all told: All those times you'd pull me aside between lectures and I'd have to go in late and in a frightful disarray. I had a reputation to maintain!"

"So did I," he grinned back.

"I hope you know that you're a complete scoundrel." 

Jack crossed his arms across his chest, very nearly spilling his tumbler across the fine wool of his suit jacket.

"I do, and I take great pride in the fact. I hope you know that you were an awful bore, at least up until a kind soul administered a good rogering to cure your chronic attack of morals."

"How saintly of you to trifle with the affairs of lesser mortals."

"My commitment to charity is one of my most celebrated traits, ask anyone in town!"

"I have to say, you've perfectly constructed the shell of a decent person to inhabit."

"Perfectly constructed? That's high praise from you and I graciously accept it; must be the familial resemblance."

"Oh, you're never going to leave that alone, are you?"

"As I recall, you were far more excited than I was at the prospect of having a new brother to welcome you into the fold, as it were."

"A momentary lapse of judgement; it won't happen again," Jack smirked, catching Algy's eye. 

"From what I remember that's exactly what you said that first time in the King's vestry, and it hardly stopped you. In fact, it failed to stop you a great many times after that, blood of my blood."

"The fact remains that it did eventually stop, oh dearest brother of mine, and it won't resume again."

"A crying shame, I had such fond memories of you begging for me," Algy said, the familiar fond sneer to his tone.

"As I recall you spent a considerable amount of our time together on your knees before me," Jack bit out. "It's all immaterial anyway, considering our newfound relationship to each other. You really should let it all go, it's... it's inappropriate and it's indecorous. And we're both very newly and very happily married."

"Now there's a point! Have you had this talk with cousin Gwendolen yet?"

"Ah, no. I'm actively avoiding the matter, and rather alarmingly Gwendolen seems to be more than a trifle envigorated every time it comes up."

Algy settled deeper into his armchair with a lopsided grin, the sherry glass dangling perilously from his fingertips.

"One big, happy and very loving family, the Moncrieffs." 


End file.
